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  • 1

Popp z-rain


sonnyboy

Question

Is Therese anybody that uses z-rain?

Anyting that is not so good with it, how long does The battery last? 

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My rainwise has stoped working and i thiniking of replace it with z-rain

 

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  • 1

Yup, indeed, expensive little sensor, but it works and is durable... But let me share my journey/experience with soil moisture measurement (sorry for the longer post, maybe need to start a separate thread):

 

I started looking into the most basic version where you measure the conductance of the soil by using two metal pins. You would still need some electronics (e.g. arduino, pi, z-uno) to get this working. Plenty of examples to find (e.g. google "soil moisture metal pin nail arduino"). My conclusion: only rudimentory measurement, the electrodes/pins oxidize and need to be regularly replaced. Not a solution for me.

 

Second option is a bit more advanced sensor for the arduino, search for e.g. "arduino moisture sensor". Cheap, did not really try it but does not seem to be suited to be buried in the ground and be left there for years...

 

So, after deselecting these options I went for a proper sensor, the VH400 from Vegetronix (~40$). Initially I planned to simply connect it as sensor to a Fibaro RGBW in sensor mode but this does not work as the sensor cannot provide the outpurt current the RGBW module requires (it has a rather low input impendance). So I needed to add some electronics to compensate (OpAmp). This worked for some months, but then the sensor failed (maybe I had a 'Monday morning" version, but it could not handle moist being permenantly buried in the ground, and water got through to the sensor which broke it after some months). Also I had some issues with the RGBW in sensor mode (randon associations and stopped reporting: claimed to be fixed with latest firmware update).

 

So, my current/working solution is to use this (expensive...) Decagon sensor combined with a z-uno, which has worked flawlessly for a year or so. The z-uno is by the way a really neat device. Basically an arduino (microprocessor board) which includes z-wave and can be programmed to be up to 10 z-wave devices. I can share the z-uno script and wiring if you like. Not a cheap solution, but at least works... :-)

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best, Rene.

...And here's a screenshot of the resulting measurements (I use Grafana to plot my sensor data from the HC2). You'll see when the watering system switches on.. :-)

 

 

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Hi @sonnyboy,

 

I don't use z-rain but Netatmo weather station rain sensor. I went to POPP pages with link you provided and I read about z-rain. As I can see it uses same system to detect rain as Netatmo rain sensor, a rocker that move when rainwater fill small vessel on it. Even it uses z-wave, rocker has to be filled with rainwater first to move and send signal and that is definitely not on first rain drops. So there is no any particular advantage over Netatmo weather station except price.

 

 

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Hi @sonnyboy,

 

when you considder to buy a new weather station, just have a look at

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. Perhaps you'll find it usefull or interesting :-)

Weatherflow has a haptic rain sensor, which reacts on the first drops. It can be intergrated with Fibaro thru API calls...

Edited by Bodyart
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  • 0
  • Inquirer
  • Thanks for your anser.  

    I bought one to test :)

    A swedish daler ha a good price 49€

    Just have to whait to monday to recive it. 

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    • 0

    I just mounted a Popp Z-rain, the price, €49 was unresitable....

    From what I understand it just shows rain rate in mm/hour (whicjh I think is equivalent to m3/m2 per hour ...??) this is the default unit the device displays...on my HCL which is a slave to the HC2 where it reads mm/hr...

    You have to read parameter 1 in order to get the accumulated rain.

    How do you do this? I suspect you must use LUA code..???

     

     

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    On ‎29‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 10:45 AM, sonnyboy said:

    Is Therese anybody that uses z-rain?

    Anyting that is not so good with it, how long does The battery last? 

    Please login or register to see this link.

    My rainwise has stoped working and i thiniking of replace it with z-rain

     

     

    I have asked POPP Technical support whether this device is fully compatible with HC2 and the answer was quick and "YES" it is fully compatible

     

    I have a problem in that I have irrigation set up in Fibaro.  Take an example..........  it must have rained here last night as the ground is wet this morning.  I have no idea for how long it was raining it was it just spitting for an half an hour just before dawn

     

    So the question is, do I irrigate today or not.  In fact do I irrigate or not and if YES, then for how long?

     

    I am afraid that out garden is very susceptible to drought in that it is a typical English Long Bed planting.  The planting is also dense so often the water does not actually get into the ground in the beds.  So I really need to know just how much it rained and for how long........I think

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    @lennypenny, have you considered to use a soil moisture sensor(s) instead of a rain/weather sensor? You will need some DIY to get this working though (arduino, z-uno, etc.) I use the z-uno with a Decagon 10HS soil sensor already for over a year, works flawless. Let me know if you want to know more.

     

    An other option / rain sensor I found is the Hydreon RG-11 (see www.rainsensors.com). I don't have one, but seems interesting as it can be configured to be triggered based on accumulated rain, rain intensity, etc. Not z-wave enabled, but you can use an UBS (Fibaro Universal Binary Sensor) to accomplish that. Or you can connect you irrigation valves directly to this rain sensor as well.

     

    Hope this helps.

     

    Rene.

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    1 hour ago, ReneNL said:

    have you considered to use a soil moisture sensor(s) instead of a rain/weather sensor?

    Hello @ReneNL,

     

    Thanks for your input.  I do like your idea to measure ACTUAL moisture levels in the ground rather than the rain / weather sensor.  I would like to try and understand just how complex the project is.  I am pretty good at following full instructions but I am not a techie by any means.  I have managed to follow a set of instructions to set up HA-Bridge on a RaspberryPi with a few hiccups <grin>  but @morpheus75here in the forum had much patience with me.

     

    I have two different areas that I believe are distinctly different in the ways it needs irrigating.  The one area takes far longer to dry out than the other sun-facing area.  I guess that means that I might have to monitor with two Decagon 10HS soil sensors?

     

    If you can, please,  start off by letting me have the sort of basic outlines of the "how to do" so that I can understand how it all fits together.  At the minute, I do not understand how the z-uno with a Decagon 10HS soil sensor and my HC2 will integrate.

     

    Thanks for your time

     

    Len

    Aha............  Just had a thought.   I have a spare z-wave chip for a RaspberryPi  And I have a spare RasPi 3  Could it be used you think?

     

    L

    uhmmmmm is this REALLY the price of a Decagon 10HS ??       

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    Edited by lennypenny
    correction
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    43 minutes ago, ReneNL said:

    I can share the z-uno script and wiring if you like. 

    oh yeah, i'm always interested in z-uno based solutions!

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    16 hours ago, ReneNL said:

    Yup, indeed, expensive little sensor, but it works and is durable... But let me share my journey/experience with soil moisture measurement (sorry for the longer post, maybe need to start a separate thread):

    Goeie Dag ( Good Day in my Mother Tongue)

     

    Thanks for this very detail bit of text.  I need to think about my next moves carefully.  I guess many of us suffer the same problem.  Our minister of Finances need to see the use of all of this automation.  I have learnt that if I am patient, and every so often I drop a few hints and then Voila, suddenly the idea comes from my wife (grin).

     

    I am slowly coming to the end of my list of "practical automation"  I need to still automate 4 black out roller blinds and one wooden slatted blind and then off course I would love to find a solution to irrigation automation.  My problem is that right now it is so easy to just tell ALEXA, to turn on "black" or "bird" and the system starts.  For me, true automation is that you do not have to remember to TELL it to irrigate.

     

    Same thing when I had to choose a robotic lawnmower.  I looked for something that will automatically go out and mow and when done, put itself to bed.  The same principle with our Samsung Vacuum.  I bought us a Robotic mop/washer for our tiles and wooden floors.  Well, you have to prepare it before you can use it and that is a bother, which proves my point.

     

    We have a friend visiting us from Australia at the moment, and he says our house is "bewildering" with all the automation and THINGS that start up, shout at you and plays tunes when it is done with a job <grin>

     

    When I am ready I will get back to you if I may OR should other be interested in this subject, you might post details here and I will get it when I decide to go ahead with it.

     

    Best regards

    Len

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    Hello fellows LUA experts,

     

    I need help how to write the LUA code for reading the POPP Z-rain parameter 1 into a Global variable.

     

    In parameter 1, the accumulated rain is stored (stupid, I know)

     

    Thanks in advance!

     

    The implementation looks like:

     

    Parameter 1: Rain Counter

    This values shows the total count of rain from the moment of inclusion in mm water level. (By writing this value this counter can be reset). 
    Size: 2 Byte, Default Value: 0

     

    Setting Description
    0 - 32000  in mm
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    It's raining at home and I think I've come across how  z-rain works.

    Checking with: fibaro:debug('Z-Rain: ' ..fibaro:getValue(774, "value")), it gives three outputs every five minutes when it's raining.
    How strong it rains. (Mm / hr)
    Total mm / m2 since installation.
    Total m3 since installation.

    For example.

    21
    192.5
    0.1925
    ....

    28.1
    194.5
    0.1945
    ....

     

    If it has’nt recorded rain in the last 5 minutes, it sends 0

     

    So if the value is anything else than 0 it rains.

     

    It should be possible to "capture" the value greater than 100 (in my case) and calculate from previous value.
    Then save the result for the last hour, day, week, month, year ...
    Unfortunately, I can not do this myself but someone else maybe have the knowledge?
     

    Edited by hegu
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    @hegu

    Thanks for this info.

    I just looked at my Z-rain for the last hour and it confirms your findings.

     

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    In my case, I have set parameter 2 to "97". It means that this number is received when rain starts, I think the first movement of the internal leveller....

    Half a minute later it send "7,00" , this should indicate the intensity in mm/hr

    1 second later it send "70,30", should be total mm since installation

    Five minutes later it send "0,00" indication rain stopped.

    So far.....

     

    But look at the next phase starting 06:27:36:

     

    "97" , "7,00", "70,80" , "0,07" (this is according to your findings) but 4 minutes later it sends "71,30" before going to "0"

     

    It looks a little unpredictable and difficult to write some code to capture....

     

    But, a least, one step forward....

     

     

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    14 hours ago, Torbjorn said:

    @hegu

    Thanks for this info.

    I just looked at my Z-rain for the last hour and it confirms your findings.

     

    Please login or register to see this attachment.

     

    In my case, I have set parameter 2 to "97". It means that this number is received when rain starts, I think the first movement of the internal leveller....

    Half a minute later it send "7,00" , this should indicate the intensity in mm/hr

    1 second later it send "70,30", should be total mm since installation

    Five minutes later it send "0,00" indication rain stopped.

    So far.....

     

    But look at the next phase starting 06:27:36:

     

    "97" , "7,00", "70,80" , "0,07" (this is according to your findings) but 4 minutes later it sends "71,30" before going to "0"

     

    It looks a little unpredictable and difficult to write some code to capture....

     

    But, a least, one step forward....

     

     

    It should be possible to write all outputs above 70 (in your case) to a variable don't you think?

    Maybe some outputs are not submitted ok, but hopefully they are most of the time.  So if mm/m2 or some other value are missing in one transfer the total amount of rainfall is in the next successful transfer. 

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    Hoi,

     

    Heb je enige vooruitgang geboekt met het popp z rain-project?

     

    Ik heb er een gekocht en ik weet niet hoe ik ermee moet werken.

     

    Het lijkt erop dat het eerst een mm / u verzendt en @ 0 mm / u later de totale hoeveelheid regen in M³. En het blijft de totale hoeveelheid getelde regen verzenden in M³, en verzendt het niet meer in mm \ h.

     

    De onderstaande foto toont de status @ 0 mm / h regen:

     

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    /monthly_2019_10/609458825_ScreenHunter_02Oct_0121_23.jpg.70e5a406a94316fe459d01be41c6a9b0.jpg" />

     

    De volgende foto toont de status als het regent. De (eenheid) eenheid verandert plotseling in niets.

    992517871_ScreenHunter_03Oct_0121_38.jpg.08f6d343f3253fcee5f5ad2f088dc3ba.jpg

    the number 65 changes with the M³ measurment so whats the use of this number?

     

    Dus weet iemand hoe deze proplem te hanteren?

     

    Groetjes TSN

    Edited by TSN1
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    Hi Torbjorn,

     

    Thx for ur answer, im affraid im gonne do the same thing.... :(

     

    So all the Popp stuf is at there best when it stays in the shop... ;) 

     

    Greets TSN

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